Rolling With A New Set Of Dice

by Craig R. Turner
bluedeathvalley.com
Aug. 28, 2008


September is upon us and its time now to break out all the home team T-shirts, jerseys, hats, pom-poms, and seat cushions. This weekend, all the arm chair quarterbacks will be dusting off their old famous (and sometimes infamous) tailgate recipes and buying out the meat counters at Costco and Sam’s Club as the weekend rapidly approaches.

For most teams, the road to redemption begins in less than 48 hours and you can believe that N.C. A&T is at the top of that list. Not since the middle of the 2005 season have the Aggies tasted victory, its last win being a 44-40 wild scoring fest on the road at Morgan State. That’s when the well of winning football suddenly went dry and the drought has continued ever since.

A&T was slapped around like a rag doll in 2006 sporting an 0-11 record with some 60 or more freshmen and walk-ons occupying the roster. That season was a messy transition year after the firing of Head Coach George Small and the hiring of Lee Fobbs, a long time running back coach from Texas A&M, by then Athletic Director Dee Todd.

2007 was hoped to be a better year with productivity coming way up and to some extent it was, as the Aggies competed on fairly even terms with most teams on its schedule.

However, A&T still remained out-manned up front, too inexperienced at quarterback and simply unable to find a way to close out and win games even though they led in five games going into the fourth quarter.

Again, it was another 0-11 year going into the books. A&T was left with nothing but shaken confidence from not being accustomed to that position in over a year and a half – a position to win.

So in the off season major moves were implemented by a new administration, headed by Dr. Stanley Battle, who wasted little time in making his presence felt very quickly. First, Dee Todd was immediately replaced at season’s end as the AD by the extremely popular A&T Alum, Hall of Famer assistant AD Wheeler Brown.

Battle just didn’t stop there and gave an infusion of funding into the football program bringing A&T up to the full allotment of 63 football scholarships for the Championship division, increased the recruiting budget, and doled out more dollars to upgrade several vacancies created from a purging within the coaching staff.

Enter two new coordinators, both former head coaches, NCCU alum Ty Odums (Bethune Cookman) guiding the defense and former Jackson State QB great John McKenzie (Alcorn State) taking the reigns of offense. Myron Jackson was brought in to coach the defensive line as he had done for the previous six years at Western Carolina and former all-MEAC performer Chris Robinson (Bethune Cookman) has taken over the linebackers.

The Aggies also retooled their schedule adding CIAA foe Johnson C. Smith and opening a week earlier than normal before facing Winston Salem State in early September in hopes of getting a chance to start fast and to be competitive.

Although A&T did not go heavily into the transfer market they did find some immediate help in DE Jarrell Herring and big offensive tackle Sergio Glenn to help beef up the line play on both sides.

More importantly though, Fobbs instituted a heavily regimented mandatory off season weight and strength conditioning program under Strength Coach Cedric Walthaw. Fobbs now have the luxury of having several more physically mature red shirt freshmen and sophomores to go along with a large upperclassman class of 19 seniors for the first time in three years.

The off-season changes have been both bold and direct in some cases, immediately making the fan base sit up and take notice. But many more moves have been much more subtle in nature, flying under the radar of the public and the press.

So will A&T be better in 2008? Yes. They have practically everyone back on both sides of the football.

Will they break their 27-game losing streak? Yes. A seven game home schedule is very favorable.

Will it come early in the season? The answer is most likely. J.C. Smith isn’t exactly a powerhouse but also not a given. It’s more of a probable than anything.

Will A&T have a winning season? If this team can stay healthy and eliminate the turnovers, seven wins is not unreasonable.

Frankly, it really doesn’t take much to turn those five close losses of a year ago into wins. Simply don’t turn the ball over and you win. Then picking up a couple or more games along the way against the rest of the schedule can very well happen once they finally end this losing streak and confidence sets in.

But in order to do that it has to start this Saturday night against the Golden Bulls. After that it’s a full MEAC slate and there are no holidays in this league anymore for anyone.

Any team in this league can beat any other team in this league and that is a fact. Call it parity or mediocrity, that is just the way it is this year.

I’m as anxious as everyone else to see this new wide-open offense which supposedly slings the ball all over field will play for a team known as a pure running team for nearly 2 decades. The offensive line is good enough now. There was a stockpiling of skilled personnel to affect this change. The big questions that now have to be answered are 1) has A&T had enough time to make that transition with it’s quarterbacks and 2) how well will they play in this system?

On defense, gone is the three-man front in favor of a bigger and more experienced four-man set, five or six very talented linebackers, and a very fast and deep secondary. Defense will be A&T’s biggest strength from the outset. But can they do something they haven’t been able to do in two years and that is stopping the run?

We’ll soon find out. I think I already know. Maybe you do too.

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J.C. Smith is a better than fair opponent for an opener and not to be taken lightly. They have an experienced quarterback and a pair of good receivers. Their running game is a little suspect but they can score more than their share of points if the defense doesn’t play up to snuff. Defensively they haven’t set the world on fire but A&T hasn’t had a lot of room to brag either the last couple of seasons.

But that was then and this is now, plus this A&T team’s personnel and coaching staff is now better this season than 0-27 would suggest. A whole lot better.

It will be slow going at first and besides, it’s a first game so look for blunders on both sides. Then things will settle in, the dam will break open in the wall up front and the Aggies will roll big in the second half to finally get the monkey off their backs.

At least for a week.

See ya Saturday afternoon at the BDF tailgate tents for the celebration.




PREDICTION

N.C. A&T - 30

J.C. Smith- 9